Ryan's Painful Good-bye

For those of you who have followed our blog for at least a year, you know the history of our two fish from this post and others. In a nutshell, Ryan won a goldfish (Nemo) at his school carnival last May. When we went to the pet store to buy a sufficient aquarium, etc., he decided that Nemo needed a friend. We purchased a betta fish, who Ryan named Brock after the fish on the TV show, iCarly. (Many of you know that Ryan often pronounces Brock "Barack," leading some to wonder why we named his fish after the President.)

Brock and Nemo have actually done quite well together. Nemo would often swim under Brock's lower fins, like going through a curtain. Brock would then "flare" to scare Nemo away. If this went on too long, I would scold them, and they would go to their separate sides of the tank. It was like having two more kids!

A couple of months ago, Brock started acting listless. I looked up betta illnesses on the Internet, and while he had some symptoms of some things, he didn't have all of the symptoms of any one illness. We weren't sure how old he was when we got him, so we attributed it to age, and prepared for his death. Amazingly, he kind of rebounded for quite a while.

The listless behavior started again a few days ago, but just kept getting worse. He stopped eating, so I put him in another bowl to feed him without Nemo grabbing the food first. When he still didn't eat, I put him back into his own aquarium where he was more comfortable.

Yesterday during the day, I could tell that he was on his last fin, so to speak. So I planned a fun "date night" with Ryan. He had gone to a friend's house to play right after school, so he was unaware of the worsening condition of Brock. I picked him up from his friend's house, and we did a little shopping, and then went out to dinner at Winger's. On our way home, I told him that I didn't think Brock would be alive when we got home. Sure enough, he was gone.

Ryan cried (wailed, really) for a few minutes. It was interesting - Nemo kept kind-of nudging Brock, like he was telling his friend to come and play. We gently removed Brock from the tank and buried him in our backyard, in a corner of the yard where almost 40 years of pets have been laid to rest. Ryan asked to spend a few minutes out there alone. It was very tender.

When we concluded Brock's service, Ryan pointed out the sunset, which was beautiful. He asked me to take a couple of pictures. Here is one through the branches of the cherry tree, under which Brock is buried, and the other one down the driveway.